What I don't like about the avatars in Eve Online is that it will draw people out of space - i.e. where the actual game happens - and into pissing around on a station, wasting time. Will there be combat? I don't think I've read anything about there being avatar combat in Eve, although I haven't looked at it for a while.

I'm afraid "Station Walking" makes me shudder because sometimes vehicular games like the late Auto Assault waste a lot of time on an "avatar sequence" that looks subpar, presumably in part because the engine wasn't designed for it.

Honestly, I'd prefer a Mass Effect MMO. I love the universe they created and let's be frank, we've been immersed in Star Wars games for years and years. I'd definitely sit up and take notice of a Mass Effect MMO.

I'm reposting for those asking - if it's the same as last weekend, these codes are five-use so give it a try even if you think someone else has nabbed it.

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RIFT is holding a special Allies of the Ascended event. As my chosen ally, you can use this code to join me during the dates below, free of charge! Heed my call, and together we shall battle the Blood Storm!

Well, Stardock haven't published a (non-beta) patch for months, so yeah, all the shit is still there. I really can't recommend it if you want to play it right now, unless you're willing to use the beta patches. I have no experience with those so I can't comment I'm afraid.

However, apparently the "bugfix patch", 1.2 is due any day now, or so I've seen people mention on the official forum anyway. Then to follow in May is the 1.3 patch which will be more gameplay fixes and new features. The 1.2 patch is supposed to address stupid sovereign AI, while 1.3 will introduce things such as a defeated sovereign's realm being handed over to someone else instead of just disappearing.

In summary, then: buy it now and consider it an investment (and put a fair amount of trust in Stardock), or play it safe and wait to see what the patches do. Elemental is almost perpetually on sale anyway, so if it isn't when the patches arrive it almost certainly will be shortly afterward.

they say it's supposed to have the feeling of piloting a heavy mech, but from the video it seems to look a bit faster paced than that.

Yeah, it looks way too fast-paced for me. From that gameplay trailer there doesn't seem to be much difference between this and any old online FPS. And you can even fly or at least hover; may as well just play Section 8.

But I think the number of folks who feel the same way are vastly inflated in your own mind. I would bet dollars to donuts that the actual number of folks who use Steam on a daily basis outnumbers those who use Impulse by a fairly large margin.

I've never argued otherwise. I think it's pretty clear that Steam is by far and away the market leader; my disappointment notwithstanding.

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of course price is going to be the dominant factor in choosing where to buy your game. i would expect that to always be the top reason in most polls.

Yeah, that's what I said. I've used quite a few direct download clients now, and for the most part price is really the only major differentiator. Taking sales out of the equation, there is not - for me - any reason to go to Steam, since Impulse (for example) doesn't need to be running and cannot lock me out of my games, etc.

I think the only thing you and I would disagree on, Hep, is the number of people who feel the same way I do. If we both plucked numbers out of our arses, I think the truth would be somewhere in between and surprise us both.

and I like Brad as he used to be pretty active on gaming forums in helping folks with his stuff, but I do disagree with this

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"I think GameStop's going to beat Steam, and I'll tell you why," says Wardell, putting down his sandwich. "One of the things that we do in our surveys is ask, why do you buy from Steam versus Impulse versus whatever. Over 80 percent who respond say 'price'."

This sounds like a job for the resident anti-Steam troll!

Seriously, there are those of us who, for one reason or another, think Impulse is vastly superior to Steam. For me personally, the only advantage Steam has is its sales. Indeed, since the Christmas sales ended, I haven't bought a single game on Steam. I guess it makes downloading demos easier, but that's not much of an advantage; I'm fine with downloading an .exe then clicking on it.

Well don't worry Blackadar...if you're still following the thread you'll see that I'm royally pissed off with Stardock now, and have been for some time. Just the other night I typed out my latest rant but then deleted it a few minutes later because...well, there's just no point any more. I've all but written Elemental off now.

Between Elemental and this, Stardock's reputation is rapidly going down the shitter as far as I'm concerned.

No, Blackadar has a personal grudge against him for ruining his life over at another forum

Oh, is that what it was? I wondered why he claimed that I want to have Brad Wardell's baby in the Elemental thread despite my previous few posts being highly critical of Stardock and merely voicing some cautious optimism. Seemed a bit uncalled-for...

RIFT is holding a special Allies of the Ascended event. As my chosen ally, you can use this code to join me during the dates below, free of charge! Heed my call, and together we shall battle the Blood Storm!

Don't dwell on it, as Morlac said. Personally I wouldn't use any medication either, unless all else fails. As you say, it's only been two nights so I wouldn't worry yet. Next time you're in bed and can't seem to drop off, just be patient. Something I find really effective is to let my imagination run wild. I start imagining some kind of landscape and then just "float around" in it, conjuring up objects and images without putting too much conscious effort into it. Explore. Have a look at the things your mind conjures. Forget about sleeping and take it all in. This works wonders for me when I can't sleep.

I also have a self-hypnosis technique that I've adapted to bring on sleep. If you want it I'll PM you.

Does anyone else think the Inquisitor AoE Soul Drain might be overpowered? Soul Drain - when coupled with Fanaticism which only has a 45 cool down, lest we forget - is incredible. It will wipe the floor with a group of mobs in the same level bracket as me. I just Vex a bunch of mobs to get them running at me, then I hit Fanaticism and Soul Drain. Very rarely do any survive, and even if they do they're knocking on death's door and you can either use Bolt of Judgement on each one or just drop a Circle of Oblivion. You can even drop a fear in the unlikely event that things get hairy.

I finally gave this a go last night and have mixed, but mainly positive, feelings about it. I played through the tutorial and the opening moments of the main campaign.

It really is Hostile Waters in space. It seems you generally have a squadron of fighters attached to a mothership (I forget the in-game name for it...a cruiser I think). The mothership is where you do all your construction, research, launch mining probes etc. Fighters can be docked here to change loadouts and train pilots, with such training being available every time a pilot levels up. The combination of equipment and training leads to improved ship capabilities and improved pilot capabilities such as better reflexes, better weapon skills and better "repair", which I think means taking less damage.

The tutorial took me through a lot of stuff in a short space of time. I learned to command my squadron first, which is one of the best parts of the game. Right-clicking will bring up the command interface and the game pauses instantly although you can still shift your view around. The interface consists of some information and options around the edge of your screen, but the main part of it is your squadron controls in the middle. All the ships in your squadron - including the mothership - are arrayed around the centre of your HUD. From here you can switch to any other ship you like instantly, or issue commands such as attack, hold position etc. Brilliantly, each command has an "all" button next to it to save you the hassle of laboriously telling each ship to do the same thing.

Right-click again and the action immediately restarts. Jumping into the mothership will provide you with a fairly satisfying range of options. You get to manage mining of local asteroids, production, decide what to research next, examine the star map (it appears you can jump around the system/galaxy/whatever at will), build more ships, etc. Plenty to do here.

And that's not all. If I read the tutorial notes right, it appears that later in the game you'll have more than one mothership to command! Considering you get one - plus around a dozen fighters - right at the start of the main campaign, it seems the game will really scale up later to some massive fleet actions. Yay!

What else...oh yeah, graphics. The space backgrounds are typically colourful, full of gorgeous nebulae and so on. You know the drill by now...hardly a patch of black to be seen anywhere! The ship models themselves aren't great to look at unfortunately. Sound was at least functional. The voice acting I heard was...eh, functional! The tutorial is voiced by someone for whom English is clearly not a native language but it's good enough. The other voices speak much better English.

And now...the bad. In the face of all this promise, it's galling for me to report that combat is not good at the moment, and that's mainly due to the controls. Now I didn't mess with any of the default options or keybindings, and hopefully doing so will fix this, but this is how combat works: Mouse controls ship facing, left mouse button fires, and space bar is the thrust. Yes, you read that right. To move anywhere you must constantly be holding down the space bar. Let go of it and you come to an instant stop. It doesn't feel at all natural and makes dogfighting severely clumsy. What I really wanted was for the mousewheel to set your speed, but it seems that in Shattered Origins your ships only have two speeds - moving or stopped. Bah! Oh and to add to the misery, aim-assist is turned on by default and it's ludicrous. It literally locks you onto the enemy. If you want to kill something, all you have to do is get it in your crosshairs once. Then, for as long as you're holding down the LMB, you are shooting with deadly accuracy at it regardless of what else you do with your mouse. I strongly suggest turning aim assist off!

I have to stress that I have only played the tutorial and barely peeked in on the campaign, and I didn't change any default options. Over the weekend I intend to play a lot more of it and decide whether it's worth buying, because I tell ya, there's immense promise in there. Remember the map in Hostile Waters, the one you traverse automatically between missions? Imagine you could go wherever you want on that map, with total freedom. Oh, and it's in space instead of the water! There's just far too much promise in this game to ignore and despite the underwhelming combat, I'm not writing it off yet.